


Close Quarters

by maxette



Category: South Park
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Clubbing, Exhibitionism, Future Fic, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Pining, Semi-Public Sex, Voyeurism, not really an au they're just older
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-26 12:15:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3850603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maxette/pseuds/maxette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Craig leaves for college, all he wants is to leave South Park far behind him. Leave it to Kenny McCormick to fuck that right up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kenny McCormick Learns a Lesson

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this prompt](http://southparkkink.livejournal.com/529.html?thread=410897#t410897) on the kink meme:
>
>> slutty Kenny and disgusted Craig in college, rooming together. bonus points for unwilling but unable-to-resist Craig initiating sex
> 
> but Craig goes from “disgusted” to “ass over teakettle in love” pretty quickly, and this first part is literally just a curtain fic. Porn on the way, and a lot more plot. :-/ 

Kenny McCormick was not an idiot.

Craig was the first person to realize that. Looking back, Craig sometimes wondered if it was this realization that Kenny was not an idiot that lead to his own downfall—but no. Craig hadn’t felt the need to act on his knowledge, had he? Of course he hadn’t. Let McCormick do what he would with his own intelligence like every other independent human being on the planet. Craig’s only mistake was telling Kyle fucking Broflovski. It was Kyle’s fault Craig’s life ended up the way it did, no question about it.

Starting in about seventh grade, Craig never would have said that he was friends with Kyle, but he couldn’t deny they were the most academically inclined boys in their class and that gave them a certain bond. Craig would have much preferred to bond with Wendy, but Bebe would have cut his dick off if she’d interpreted his actions as attempting to divide Wendy’s loyalties (discovering he was gay while dating Bebe was one of the worst decisions of Craig’s life—except, no, he couldn’t help discovering it when he did. It was telling Bebe that was the mistake. Basically, telling anyone anything just lead to trouble) so Craig was left with Kyle.

They didn’t study together. They didn’t do group projects together. They mostly didn’t acknowledge each other outside of class. But in class, when there was a lull in activity, they would compare test scores, trade notes, summarize the reading if one of them didn’t have time to finish it the night before, that kind of thing. And one fateful afternoon in freshman Algebra, while exams were being passed back, Kyle turned around in his seat and asked him, “What did you get for number nine?”

“I got that one wrong, too,” Craig told him. “Ask McCormick. He got a hundred percent.”

Craig knew this because McCormick, when he came to class, sat next to Craig in the back row of the classroom. Kyle was a quintessential front row sitter and Craig was privately pleased that his unspoken bond with Craig made him move ten rows back to be close enough to talk to him.

“He what?” Kyle spun around and looked at his friend. “Kenny, you got a hundred?”

McCormick shrugged at Kyle and handed over his test, opened to the ninth question. On the back of the test Craig noticed a sketch of Lola’s coin slot framed beneath the back of her chair. Craig compared it to the real Lola’s ass, seated one up and over from Kenny. It was a fair likeness.

“But you’re failing, dude,” Kyle said. Their teacher posted their cumulative grades alongside their last names, on a bulletin board next to the door, so that was common knowledge. “How are you getting perfect test scores and failing the class?”

When McCormick just shrugged again, Craig said, “He’s only been present for two of the tests.”

“You know you can take makeups.”

McCormick paired this shrug with a scowl, but that seemed to make Kyle only more determined. After class that day he dragged McCormick up to their teacher and asked him to allow McCormick to take all six tests he’d missed. Mr. Craven told them that McCormick could take them all right now, during the lunch period, or never again. Craig wasn’t sticking around to listen to the conversation or anything; it was just that the rest of the gang always met him here before they went to eat on the bleachers and he couldn’t help overhearing.

McCormick dropped into a front row desk, the feet of the chair scraping against the linoleum with the force of him, right in front of Craven’s desk. “Bring it on,” he said. Craven slapped down a thin stack of papers and a brand new yellow pencil.

It was natural curiosity that compelled him to look in on Craven’s classroom after lunch. Kyle and McCormick were gone and Craig jumped when Craven came out of nowhere with a piece of paper in his hands.

It was their grades, freshly printed. Craven ignored Craig as he took down the old sheet and meticulously pinned up the new. Craig had no choice but to look.

He scanned down to _McCormick_ and over to the grade column: _A._

He’d answered six tests worth of questions in less than forty-five minutes and gotten enough of them right that he now had an A. By the end of the year—Craig only knew this because Kyle felt the need to share—McCormick had passed all his classes and aced all the ones that let him make up work.

“He’s a genius,” Kyle said, “basically, and he just needed someone to believe in him to get the grades to prove it, you know? This is all thanks to you.”

“What,” Craig said. “No. I don’t believe in him.”

Kyle gave him an obnoxiously fond smile. “You’re the one who noticed.”

For the rest of his life Craig would contend that he did not notice Kenny McCormick was a genius. Kenny was not a genius. Kenny was simply not an idiot, which was a rare enough claim, but there was no need to throw around words like “genius.”

Fast forward three and a half years and most everyone in their class was applying to college. Craig applied for early action to UC Berkeley and was pleased to be accepted and finished with the whole rigmarole before Christmas. That was until normal acceptance started coming in and he found out that Kyle, McCormick, and Stan fucking Marsh were all going to Berkeley, too.

Kyle was, appropriately, afraid to face him, but eventually it burst out of him like pus from a zit: “Stan and Kenny both got a full scholarship!”

Marsh had, in fact, been recruited—he was probably getting paid to play football for them, that asshole, like Clyde was getting paid to play clear across the country in Massachusetts. If Craig had really wanted to avoid this fate, he should have gone for a NCAA Division III school.

“And what’s your excuse, Broflovski?”

Kyle had the grace to look ashamed, though not nearly ashamed enough. “It’s a really good school.”

Yes, it was. It was also a big school. South Park might be following him to California, but Craig could still leave it behind. He would just avoid them all. It would probably happen naturally. Thanks to AP tests, he already met all his general education requirements, so they probably wouldn’t even end up in any of the same classes. By the time they graduated Craig planned not to recognize Kyle, McCormick, or Marsh if he passed them on the street.

His parents offered to go with him to Berkeley at the end of the summer, but he refused. The prolonged goodbye sounded excruciating and he knew even his own four flights back and forth this year would already stretch their budget thin, to the point that he was pretty sure he’d stay on campus for Christmas. He arrived for freshman orientation with two suitcases, and two boxes waiting for him at the residence office. An RA gave him a dolly, along with his room key and a welcome packet, so he managed to get it all up to the sixth floor in one trip.

When he arrived at his door, it was closed, but not latched. His roommate was inside. Craig took a moment to picture his worst nightmare: sports star, dead sexy, homophobic, bad personal hygiene, flanked by his chattering girlfriend and high-powered father. It could only be better than that.

Craig pushed open the door.

He was wrong. He’d take his nightmare any day over this: Kenny McCormick, no shirt . . . that was the extent of it, actually, but that was plenty. Kenny McCormick. And Kenny McCormick’s skin and muscles and hip bones and nipples and—

“You.”

“Uh—yeah, no shit, dude.” McCormick pulled a shirt out of an open drawer and put it on. It didn’t help that much. “Did you not already know about this?”

“How could I have known about this?”

“The school sent out roommate assignments like a month ago.”

Craig closed his eyes for a moment. “I did not receive one.”

“Oh. Well, yeah. I’m your roommate.”

“Did they just pair people by birthplace? Are Broflovski and Marsh roommates, too?”

“Nah, but they’re in the same building, over at Foothill.”

That, at least, was some relief. The Foothill dorms were about as far from Sproul Hall as you could get.

“Dude, the vending machines in here are way better than the ones in ours,” Marsh said, as he walked into the room, followed by Kyle, arms full of candy bars.

Kenny coughed. “But they’re here right now, though.”

“Craig!” Kyle said.

“He didn’t know I’m his roommate,” McCormick put in quickly.

“Oh.” Kyle stopped smiling. “When you didn’t come freak out at us we figured you were cool with it.”

Jesus Christ. Only this group would feel like they were collectively Craig’s roommate, collectively concerned about being collectively freaked out at.

Clyde was in Massachusetts. Tweek was in Texas. Token was at the Colorado College, an excellent small, private school Craig hadn’t even heard of until after he was locked in at Cal—not that he would have changed his mind. People who followed their friends to college were bound to get stuck in the past. They were already halfway back to South Park, waiting to live the exact the same miserable life as their parents. That was not going to be Craig’s fate.

Craig took another deep breath. “I’ll leave you alone with your friends to finish unpacking.”

“I’m finished.”

He—was? McCormick’s bed wasn’t even made. There was just a sleeping bag laid out over the skinny, water-stained mattress. He didn’t have a pillow.

The surprise might have actually shown on Craig’s face because Marsh quickly said, “We were actually going to find a Wall-Mart or something,” as if he was justifying McCormick’s barren setup, “pick up a few things.”

“No, we weren’t,” McCormick said, glaring at Stan. “I don’t have any money.”

Marsh glared back at him. “There’s money, dude.”

Kyle looked between them for a second and then ducked over to Craig, grabbing the dolly out of his hands and pulling his stuff farther in the room, the most hapless mediator Craig had ever seen.

“Look, if the quarterback wants to use his tap on the school’s endowment to buy us all shower caddies, I’ll go to Wall-Mart with you assholes.”

Craig didn’t know why he said it, and he knew even less why it made a difference, but McCormick’s expression softened and he said, “Okay.”

Marsh gaped at him. “—cool. Do you want to change or anything?”

“No.” Craig turned and walked out of the room.

Craig was ready to test out his theoretical understanding of the local public transit, but Marsh led them to a parking garage across the street. His dusty silver Outback stood out in a sea of sedans.

“You have your car?”

“We road tripped here,” Kyle chirped.

Of course they had. Road trips were not fun, Craig reminded himself. It was just movies filled with hijinks and bonding that had tricked everyone into thinking they were.

“Freshmen aren’t allowed to have a car.”

“Yeah,” said Marsh, “but I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask anyway, right?”

Of course he had. Of course the school said yes.

Craig didn’t know why he was so annoyed. He didn’t have a car to bring. Even if he did, parking permits were over a thousand dollars a year, and not covered by his scholarship, so that would have been a stupid reason to take out a loan. The Bay Area was eminently walkable according to everything Craig had read, and his student ID let him on the bus for free. Marsh was stuck with an expensive hassle.

Craig got in the backseat next to Kenny, feeling like a little kid with Mom and Dad in the front. Craig considered mocking Kyle by calling him Mom, but he’d probably enjoy the idea of having two grown sons with Marsh. Craig didn’t know what the deal was with them. It was possible they’d been married since it was legalized in Colorado, and Wendy had been Marsh’s beard all this time so not to scare off recruiters. It was possible neither of them were even gay, and so was anything in between those two extremes. Maybe they were in a committed threesome with McCormick. Maybe the real Kyle had died years ago and Stan’s dad had him turned into a hologram to keep his son from going crazy. Not knowing killed him, but if there was one thing worse, it was asking them about it, so here they were.

After an extraordinary amount of back and forth Mom and Dad figured out the closest Wall-Mart and programmed it into the GPS. It was a twenty-minute drive, going almost all the way back to the Oakland Airport on the freeway. Craig let the rest of them talk and watched his new city fly by through the window until it started to look more suburban and familiar, though still about a hundred times more densely packed than even Denver, never mind South Park.

The Wall-Mart was about twice the size of the one in South Park, too, with a parking lot a quarter of the size. “There’s a spot,” Kyle said, pointing at one right at the entrance, as far from the doors as possible. Craig approved because being parked beat circling the lot, hands down, and his mom had ground into him that a longer walk to the entrance was good exercise.

“We can get closer,” Marsh said, driving right down the center lane, and lo, a car pulled out of the closest non-handicap spot just as they came up to it. Craig slammed his head against the drivers seat in front of him, taking a little joy from Marsh’s yelp of surprise.

As they entered the store, Craig steered Kyle to the shopping carts and told him, “My roommate should have a bed, so I’m going to get that stuff. You and Marsh go the opposite direction and get whatever else you want to put in our room. We’ll meet at the cash registers in forty-five minutes.”

“Sure.” Kyle looked like the cat that ate the canary. Craig suspected he was the canary. “Thanks, Craig. That’s really nice of you.”

Craig flipped him off.

Kyle propped his arm on a cart and leaned his chin on his fist. “Where’s Kenny going to go?”

“I don’t give a shit.”

“Because you’ve got this all planned out and it sounds like he’s not going with me and Stan.”

“He’s just not as codependent as you assholes. He’ll go where he wants.”

“No, hey, buddy—I’m sure he’ll be happy to go with you if you want him to!”

Craig wrenched a cart out of the line of them and stomped away with it. He made it past a few aisles before he picked up the sound of someone running after him. He looked back. It was McCormick. Craig didn’t slow down, but he didn’t tell him to do his own shopping. Craig supposed could allow him a say in his own bed.

Kenny had no interest in having a say, however, except to point out a Terrance and Phillip bed-in-a-bag polyester blend monstrosity that Craig would not abide. He found a set of orange sheets, 100% cotton, and a matching comforter cover in an inoffensive print, then moved to the bigger stuff: a down comforter—queen size so it would definitely be long enough—a couple of pillows, and a mattress pad from a big endcap sale. By that point, the cart was overflowing.

“What is all that?”

“That’s bedding.”

“No.” Kenny fished out the sheet set and held it up. “This is bedding.”

“So I’m upping your sleep game, McCormick, okay?”

“I can’t ask Stan to pay for all this shit.”

“You didn’t ask.”

Kenny crossed his arms over his chest and sneered at the mattress pad.

“Listen—” Craig leaned forward on the cart and started walking down the aisle again, not looking back to see if Kenny was following him. “Token’s family took me to Orlando with them last summer. They paid for everything—a couple days at each of the theme parks down there, a hotel room just for me and Token, like five square meals a day. Dinner cost over a thousand dollars one night. It was really fucking awkward sometimes, but it made them happy that their son had a friend on his vacation. It will make Marsh happy for you to have a memory foam mattress pad. He’s not doing this for you. Every human action has a self-serving root. He’s doing this to feel like a good friend.”

“It’s still—” Kenny shook his head.

Someone in a bright blue vest cut in front of them, triggering Craig to remember—“Wait, didn’t you _work_ at Wall-Mart this summer?”

“Yep.”

“And Harbucks?” That one Craig was sure of because there was nothing he liked better, after a long day making coffee, than having someone else make coffee for him.

“Yep. They actually let me transfer out here.”

“Where did all that money go?”

“Rent, utilities, groceries—”

“ _All_ of it went to—?”

“Do you know what you take home from two full-time minimum wage jobs in three months?”

Craig knew you took home about two grand from one part-time minimum wage job from his own summer at Tweak Bros., so he could extrapolate, but he just said, “No,” because he wanted Kenny to tell him about it.

“About fifty-five-hundred bucks,” Kenny said. “It sounds like a lot, but Karen got strep and we had to go to the doctor, then we had to hire a plumber, then the fridge died, and then my dad—I should have fucking known better. He found some cash in the house. But everything I’ve ever managed to save is in a savings account now, under my sister’s name, which my parents can’t touch. That should make sure she can always afford to keep the lights on, buy groceries, maybe see a movie with her friends. She’s not going to have to work as hard as I did.”

“You couldn’t keep _any_ of it for yourself?”

“College and California and all of this shit—none of it is worth it if Karen’s not okay. No, I mean—I can’t _do_ this if Karen’s not okay.”

“Yeah,” Craig said, but what he meant was, _yes, I understand you completely, I’d take a bullet for my sister._

Infuriatingly, from his grin, McCormick knew exactly what he meant. “Yeah. Your sister’s cool.”

“You know my sister?”

“She and Karen are friends.” Craig knew that, had seen them doing homework at the kitchen table often enough, but he hadn’t considered that they spent time at the McCormick house, too. “And Ike has a crush on her.”

“Ike, Kyle’s-little-brother-Ike?” Craig stood up straight. “That Canadian pervert? If he touches her—”

“Simmer down, Big Brother. Ike’s a really good kid. Also, he’s a year younger and like two feet shorter than her. Ruby could kick his ass.”

Craig squeezed his hands around the cart handle. “If she has to, I will kick his ass _again_.”

“Okay,” McCormick laughed. “I’ll pass that along.”

They were in front of bath linens now, and Craig doubted McCormick had what he needed from this department, either, so he picked out a couple of dark orange bath towels, a hand towel, a wash cloth, and then another hand towel, this one covered in Terrance and Phillip in various rude positions.

“Ha,” McCormick said, grabbing a matching washcloth. “How come you’re getting everything in orange?”

Shit. He was going for orange because he thought it was McCormick’s favorite color. He hadn’t really processed his line of logic or he would have avoided acting on it at all costs.

“Don’t you like orange?” he said. It was possible he was blushing, damn his fair English skin.

“Orange is fine,” Kenny said. “It reminds me of being a kid.”

Right, fuck, that orange parka. This was all its fault. These days Kenny’s wardrobe was mostly black and white—dark jeans, tight white tees, and a leather motorcycle jacket. Sometimes he wore bright colored socks.

Goddamn it, that was another weird thing to be aware of, wasn’t it? Kenny took his boots off in class sometimes, that was all, usually when he was concentrating on taking a test. It was disgusting.

Craig started putting the orange towels back on the shelf. “How’s white?”

“I prefer blue, actually,” Kenny said, bending down and picking out a bright navy bath towel. He stood and held it out, assessing. After a moment Craig realized he was comparing it to the blue of Craig’s own shirt. Kenny smiled. “Yeah, that’s nice.”

Craig was definitely blushing now. God _damn_ it.

It was going to be a very long year.

“Hey, dudes,” Marsh said as he and Kyle came around the corner, straining the _s_ like he’d forgotten Craig was here to call for a plural. “Want to stash these carts somewhere and get In-N-Out? I saw one around the corner.”

“Ooh,” Kenny said, “the magical California burgers.”

“It’s so good. I ate there all the time when I was here for training camp,” Marsh told Craig. “My treat.”

“Stan—” Kenny started, but Marsh cut him off.

“Kenny, c’mon, it’ll be like five bucks, let me—”

“ _Stan_.” Marsh's mouth snapped closed. “How many of your American Lit essays would you say I wrote for you last year?”

“Um—all of them, like—give or take.”

Really? Craig glared at Kyle who was wincing like he already knew Craig would blame him for that. Never fucking mind.

“Do you feel like you owe me for that?”

“I mean—yeah, of course, if you—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Kenny said. “We’re family, right? Family does shit for each other.”

Marsh smiled. “Right.”

“Let’s go get some burgers.”

“Stashing the carts won’t work,” Craig said. “They’ll be gone by the time we get back.”

“No, they won’t,” Marsh said, smile dripping into a scowl, like he wanted to tell Craig to stay with the precious carts if he was so worried they’d be lost.

“Yeah, dude,” Kyle said as he slung an arm around Craig’s shoulder. “Who would want our carts?”

The carts were, of course, gone when they got back from lunch. Craig thought he might explode with the need to say, _I told you so_ , but he contained himself. Marsh looked equally ready to explode with the knowledge Craig was right, anyway.

“Well, let’s make the rounds again,” Craig said instead, his voice admirably blasé, even for him. “We’ll meet you—”

“—at the video games in twenty minutes,” McCormick finished for him. “C’mon, Stan, lets get some new carts.”

“See,” Kyle said as the other guys walked away, “I told you he’d be happy to go with you.”

Craig wanted to punch Kyle in the face. He wanted to break Kyle’s fucking nose. He settled for punching him in the shoulder, but Kyle took even the pleasure of that away from him by laughing as he winced, like Craig had just proved his point.


	2. Shower Parties

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahahaha I should NEVER make promises about when I'm going to post things but here you go here's two chapters at once.

If you were to go by rumors, Bebe was the biggest slut in their graduating class. After four years of cultivating it, Craig thought she was the rightful keeper of the title.

If you went by the secrets people had told Craig in the strictest confidence, the biggest slut in their class was Kenny. Take Craig’s best friends for example: it was common knowledge that Bebe had slept with Tweek, Token, and Clyde after respective school dances. Craig knew for certain that they had not because he had spent the entire nights in question with them himself. They had all, however, slept with Kenny, impromptu experiments that confirmed for each of them that: _nope, I’m pretty damn straight!_

Craig was not disappointed not to be involved in these discoveries. Of course he wasn’t.

Clyde had sex with Kenny two more times after that first heterosexuality-affirming time. So Craig wasn’t sure how straight Clyde really was. He definitely wasn’t into Craig though. That he was very sure of.

If everyone who privately told him they had slept with Kenny could be believed, the only people in their class who _hadn’t_ slept with him were Kyle, Marsh, Eric Cartman, Butters Stotch, and Craig himself. One of these things was not like the others.

He didn’t know what made him so special, but Craig had never, not once, come anywhere close to having sex with Kenny McCormick. Maybe Kenny could just tell he wasn’t interested and trying wasn’t worth his time.

Of course, Kyle, Marsh, and Cartman were the three people least likely to confide in him if they had slept with Kenny, so maybe it was just Craig. And Butters. But more likely Butters was the special one. Kenny openly adored Butters, and if Craig weren’t so aware of Kenny spreading his seed far and wide, he would have assumed that they were boyfriends. So, yeah, just Craig. There was something about Craig that made him unappealing to Kenny.

Craig was not unattractive. He didn’t reach the Kenny McCormick standard of aesthetic perfection, sure, but no one in South Park did. Hardly anyone in Hollywood did, really, so Kenny couldn’t have been expecting that. Between four years running track and steady weight training, Craig had a decent body. Clear skin. Cute enough face, even if Token, Tweek, and Clyde were demonstrably cuter (in that order). Plenty of guys on Grindr wanted to meet him and his photos weren’t even that good. (Putting a lot of effort into selfies offended Craig, both the concept doing it himself, and seeing it on other people’s profiles. The barest hint of a DSLR and strategic lighting made him want to meet up with the guy just so he could throw a pitcher of cold water in his face.) He hadn’t actually hooked up with anyone, but he _could_ have. So that wasn’t the problem.

That left his personality. Or something in their long, twisted history. But never mind why—Craig didn’t care why Kenny never propositioned him. He didn’t want to fuck Kenny anyway. The interesting thing, really, was how every single other person in the world did. One smile from Kenny and even the straightest bros and the queerest lesbians slipped a little more center on the Kinsey scale.

Craig didn’t expect Kenny to turn a new leaf at college, but he was still surprised to see Kenny sitting on some guy’s cock at one o’clock in the afternoon their second day at Cal.

Craig’s first thought was, _Well, this explains why he wasn’t at the scavenger hunt, anyway_ , but then his brain started working again and he said, “Dude,” closing his eyes and turning around. “Sock on the doorknob? Is that so hard?”

“Craig, please. I’m not going to lock you out of your room every time I get laid. Do _you_ mind?” Kenny’s question was accompanied by a damp slap and seemed to be directed at the dick he was riding.

“Nu-uh,” the dick replied.

“I mind,” Craig said. “ _I_ mind.”

“Stay or go, whatever you want,” Kenny said. “I’m not keeping out when you’re getting laid, though.”

When Craig got laid. Right.

Craig was a virgin. By choice, more or less. He didn’t care if his first time was with someone he loved—or, you know, really, really liked—not in any rational way, but since he’d turned down more than one opportunity to have sex with strangers, apparently some more primal part of him did care. And he hadn’t loved anyone yet, or at least anyone who wanted to see him naked. He had more options now—any options, in fact, were more options—but he wasn’t going to hold his breath.

Craig turned and faced the action again. Kenny smirked at him. _Fuck you,_ Craig thought, _fuck you, fuck you, fuck you_ —God, he hated Kenny’s whole fucking face. Craig marched across the room, hopped up on his bed and leaned back against his new, Marsh-funded mountain of pillows. Craig had a clear view of the action from this angle—or, at least, a clear view of Kenny, who was sitting completely upright on the dick, facing Craig, seemingly uninterested in kissing or pressing skin against skin or—well, most of what Craig thought sounded good about sex. Craig stretched out his legs, crossed his ankles, and settled in to watch. It didn’t take long for Kenny to meet his gaze. Craig expected a quick put down, something like, _I said that you could stay, not that you could stare_ , but Kenny was silent except for his heavy breathing and quivering little moans.

And he didn’t take his eyes off Craig.

Well, if it was a game of chicken he wanted, Craig would play. And he would win.

Kenny was ignoring his own cock, but it was hard and leaking and begging for some attention. It was enormous, too, fat and long and jutting straight out from a tidy blond bush, an unconscionable cherry on top of the beautiful sundae that was the rest of him. The dick he was fucking was big, too, big enough that he had to rise all the way up, so he was standing on his knees, and sit back down to fuck the full length of it. He rose up and the dick sprung out of his hole with an audible _pop_. Kenny smacked the dick’s hands away from helping him and fit it back in his ass by himself.

Craig wondered, without permission, how Kenny would have to move if he was fucking himself on Craig’s cock like that. Craig was pretty long himself, longer than Kenny, probably, though not nearly as thick. He’d never pop out. He’d fuck Kenny deeper than he’d ever been fucked before.

Right. Craig shook himself out of it. Like there was a chance, in the expanse of Kenny’s sexual history, that Craig would be the longest he’d ever had. Craig looked back to Kenny’s face and Kenny was waiting for him, smiling a little as their eyes caught, and sucking in a gasp as he sat back down on the dick, as if Craig was the reason for that sensation.

Jesus. Fuck. Craig’s cock had hardened down his leg. He squeezed his hands around his knees, as far below his cock as he could reach, but that didn’t make it any less obvious, bulging against the fabric. Kenny’s gaze crawled down Craig’s body, making him intensely aware of how fast he was breathing now, his chest rising and falling underneath his shirt in time with Kenny’s thrusts. Kenny’s gaze caught on Craig’s hard cock, and the dark circle of precome spreading just above Craig’s right thumb. Kenny licked his lips.

Craig deserved _some_ thing for that. He lifted his thumb and rubbed it over the head of his cock, once, twice—that was all he would allow himself.

The dick came, Craig could tell from the sounds he was making and the way his body started to twitch uncontrollably underneath Kenny. The dick reached for Kenny’s cock, but Kenny beat him too it, taking it in both hands and jerking himself off in earnest. Kenny was looking at Craig a little crazily, stroking his cock and still fucking himself on the softening dick with shallow thrusts, and Craig didn’t know what he _wanted_ —permission to come? At the thought Craig realized that was the only thing that wild look in Kenny’s eyes could mean and, slowly, Craig nodded at him. Kenny came immediately, explosively, ropes of come coating his chest and belly.

Almost without conscious thought, too desperate for that, Craig dragged his hand up his leg and over his cock throbbing against the inseam of his jeans. He dragged it back down and that was it, that was all he needed—he came, too, trembling with the strength of it as he forced himself to keep his eyes open, keep his eyes locked with Kenny’s.

“Thanks,” Kenny said in between gulps of air, still looking at Craig. Finally he looked back down at the dick. “That was awesome.”

Kenny swung his leg over and pulled off the dick with a _pop_. He picked up an already dampened washcloth from his bedside table and wiped the come off his belly, ran it over his dick and in between his ass cheeks, while the dick tied off his condom and started to get dressed. Now that he was standing, Craig noticed he was pretty short, and not that cute.

“Let’s do this again.” The dick ran his hand over the back of Kenny’s head. “Soon?”

Kenny tossed him a grin. “I’ll call you,” he said, clearly meaning the opposite. Craig wondered if it was so clear to the dick. Maybe he’d remember later that they never exchanged phone numbers.

Craig got up. He had to take these clothes off before his come dried too much, plus he was all sweaty now. He wanted a shower, wanted to wash this whole weird encounter off of him. He opened the doors of his wardrobe and stepped between them. They didn’t provide much privacy, but it was something, enough to cover him wiping the come off his leg and push everything to the bottom of his hamper without being too obvious. He wrapped a towel around his waist and grabbed his shower caddy: purple—also thanks to Marsh’s generosity—but useful.

“Wait a sec,” Kenny said, “I’ll come with you.”

Craig thought he was talking to the dick, but when he glanced back he realized they were alone in the room now.

“Shower party?” Craig said, trying to sound mocking and not succeeding very well. A group of sophomore girls on their floor ran down the hall shouting, “Shower party!” every night before blasting pop music and all taking showers at the same time.

Kenny held up his index finger with one hand, poked at his phone with the other, and then Miley Cyrus started to play: _I hopped off the plane at LAX with a dream and my cardigan_.

Craig turned on his heel and strode out of the room. Kenny was ten seconds behind him, caught the door of the bathroom before it swung shut completely.

It became a thing after that, inexplicably. They spent their mornings apart, but after lunch they both made it back to their room and eventually someone else found their way there, too. Kenny had sex, Craig plainly did not mind his own business, and then they took showers together—just the two of them, every time, like no third person had been involved in the afternoon’s activities at all.

Kenny played one horrible, outdated Top 40 song after another, the backing tracks tinny underneath Kenny’s voice, singing along to every word. The catchy beats were hard to ignore, but Craig had so far kept from dancing. Kenny, of course, didn’t even try—Craig could see his feet moving under the hall wall between them. He had long toes, knobby ankles, and very pale hair on his legs.

Craig wasn’t into feet, generally, but it seemed like such a waste that no one, so far, had sucked the outside jut of Kenny’s ankle into their mouth, or kissed the gentle curve of his shin. How many people in Kenny’s past had run straight for home instead of savoring their time on the bases? Craig didn’t get it.

It was times like this he wondered if he just wanted something totally different out of sex than most people, if sex would even be very good once he finally did it. Then again, even being a voyeur of Kenny and the dick having garbage sex was stupid fucking hot, so actually having the sex himself could only be an improvement.

Craig scrubbed his skin raw before he was done with his shower Tuesday night. After dinner later, Kenny ran his fingers over Craig’s still-pink skin and tutted at him. “You’re so hard on yourself.”

Craig was instantly low grade turned on, picturing Kenny’s _hard_ cock _on_ him.

Kenny had broken him. Craig had accepted that.

“It’s good to exfoliate,” he said, trying to shoulder Kenny’s hand away, but Kenny was having none of it. “Gets rid of dead skin cells.”

Kenny hummed, and stroked Craig’s shoulder more firmly. “Your skin _is_ really soft.”

Craig’s nipples were getting hard in the hope that Kenny would touch them. Kenny didn’t touch him very much. Frankly, no one touched Craig very much, and no one ever had. His family wasn’t physically affectionate. His had never been touchy with his friends, but they were especially careful to keep their hands to themselves once Craig came out. Craig stared at Kenny’s hand. What would he do if Craig asked him to touch his nipples? Would he do it? Would he laugh at him?

“So,” Kenny said, and Craig snapped his mouth shut, “don’t kill me, but I have someone else coming over tonight.”

Craig kept his face impassive as his arousal kicked up a few more degrees. “It’s fine. Just don’t keep me up. Class starts tomorrow and my first one is at eight o’clock.”

“They’ll be on their way by ten.”

Craig seriously doubted that when Kenny’s evening hookup arrived wearing bunny slippers and carrying a bottle of peach schnapps along with a stack of the summer reading they were ostensibly getting together to discuss. Ashley, Craig was certain as he shook her hand, took her time putting out and insisted on spending the night being spooned afterwards.

She was bouncing on Kenny’s cock not fifteen minutes later, proving Kenny’s highly superior understanding of pussy. Craig was happy she faced away from him so his view was of Kenny’s big hands moving over her back, his face over her shoulder, no tits in sight.

Craig didn’t have to watch. He couldn’t excuse this as some extended game of chicken. He didn’t have anything to prove. Kenny also didn’t have to watch him watching. The whole damn time. Craig got out of there before he came this time, and jerked off in a bathroom stall like a civilized person. Ashley was gone by the time he got back, but her schnapps was still there. Kenny ended up keeping Craig up _way_ too late, anyway, passing the bottle back and forth with him for hours.

The next day, Craig had three lectures before lunchtime. He realized right away that his usual seat in the back of the room wasn’t an option in 500-seat lecture halls. The professor wouldn’t notice him regardless of where he sat, but he wouldn’t even be able to see or hear very well in the back. Craig went to his third lecture of the day with a new usual: left side, about halfway down, aisle seat, even if it meant a dozen people had to crawl over him to find their own place to sit.

He walked into the Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs lecture hall and confidently down the left aisle. A familiar blond head came into focus smack in his new usual seat. “Kenny,” he said.

“Craig.” Kenny smiled at him and got up, moving one seat farther in and opening up the aisle for Craig.

He sat down. “Uh—thanks.”

“I followed you to your last two classes and saw that you always sat here. I was just keeping it warm for you.” Craig stared at him. After a beat, Kenny started cackling. “I’m definitely fucking with you, dude. You’re just such an aisle sitter. You need an escape route.”

Was that what it was? Craig looked up the aisle and reflected that it did make him nervous to be so far from the door, but the straight shot up the stairs was some comfort. He turned to Kenny and narrowed his eyes. “How did you know I had two classes before this?”

“You have your weekly calendar up on your wall, nerd.”

“Right.” Craig busied himself pulling his laptop out of his bag. “So CS 61A.”

“You can’t take any other CS classes until you take this one.”

“You’re going to major in CS?” Kenny shrugged. “Developer is kind of the new doctor.”

That’s why Craig was considering majoring in Computer Science, anyway. And Business. And Engineering. The Berkeley Academic Guide allowed you to narrow the degree options by Your Interests. Craig was frustrated to find that “making bank” wasn’t on the list, but he worked out the possibilities for himself.

“Dolla’ dolla’ bill, y’all,” Kenny agreed. “But there are a lot of ways to get rich. Mostly I enjoy code.”

That sounded nice. Craig hadn’t particularly _enjoyed_ anything so far. “I’ve never done any programming before.”

“I thought you made the Tweak Bros. website.”

Craig was surprised Kenny had any clue about that. “Not really. I just found a free WordPress theme and customized it, took photos and made graphics and stuff.”

It was actually a lot more difficult than he was making it out to be, but that just proved he had no idea what he was doing. Kenny pulled up the Tweak Bros. website on his laptop and, within a few clicks, found his way to the original theme.

“Well, this theme is ugly and the Tweak Bros. site looks great. You have a good eye.”

It was stupid to be flattered by that, Craig reminded himself, because what did Kenny know about it? “I don’t know how well that’s going to translate to functions and conditionals and stuff,” he said.

“Oh, it won’t. But that eye—you have something they could never teach you.”

“Designers don’t make as much as developers.”

“They do when the CEO can tell their ass from their elbow,” Kenny said.

“Or I can learn what even the stupid CEOs know deserves a six figure salary.”

Earlier that morning Craig had gone to the introductory lectures of the prerequisite classes for the Business Administration and Electrical Engineering majors, which basically served to weed out the weak from those highly competitive programs. Even after those, this introduction to SICP made Craig’s head hurt.

“Jesus,” said Craig at the end of it. “This class is going to be really—”

“Boring,” Kenny muttered.

No. No, Craig was going to say _hard_.

“Maybe you can test out of it?”

“You just want to get me out of your class. I see through you, Tucker. C’mon, lets get some food.”

A smear of pink shot in front of them. “You’re getting lunch?” The smear was a girl, very pretty, big brown eyes, hair like a sheet of black silk, wearing a sundress that barely reached her thighs.

“Yeah. You want to come?” She smiled and nodded. Kenny held out his hand. “I’m Kenny. This is Craig.”

“Megumi,” she said, shaking Kenny’s hand slowly and not sparing Craig a glance. “Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere I can pay with meal plan points,” Kenny said and Megumi giggled like that was the most charming thing she’d ever heard.

“I’m not hungry,” Craig said.

“Of course you are.” Kenny grabbed Craig’s arm and pulled him out of the room. “You forget I’m as tall as you are, dude. You’re hungry all the time.”

Megumi looped her arm through Kenny’s on his other side and they went down the hall like they were off to see the wizard. Craig tried to shake Kenny off.

“Maybe something made me lose my appetite.”

“Jesus fucking—okay, Megumi? Craig is my roommate, and he’s worried he’s going to have to watch me have sex with you in our room. But I can tell you’re a nice girl and you would _never_ , right?”

More to the point, Craig reflected exactly one hour later, when Kenny had his head between Megumi’s legs and Craig was eating the last of a box of granola bars across the room, there was no reason Craig’s absence from lunch would encourage a nice girl to _never_ , while his presence might have done a pretty good job. Craig watched Kenny’s ass as he shifted positions, watched his little pink pucker wink at him and imagined sitting down behind him, licking that hole and working his finger inside, fucking Kenny while Kenny fucked Megumi. He imagined it until Megumi came and switched places with Kenny, giving him a quick and dirty blowjob and ignoring his asshole completely. None of his hookups had given Kenny’s asshole the attention it deserved, the most egregious oversight of them all.

Megumi was Kenny’s sixth hookup since they move in five days ago. Meanwhile, Craig used Grindr the way most people played Candy Crush: compulsively, to the point it wasn’t even fun anymore. Wake up and it was time to look at Grindr. Wait in line and look at Grindr. Read three sentences of a boring textbook and look at Grindr. The fresh faces were exciting when he first got to the Bay Area, and the sheer number of them, but he was bored again within a few days. The only time it really made sense to look at Grindr was when he was feeling horny and a little pathetic.

That hadn’t happened since he started living with Kenny. Horny, yes, but he could only jerk off with frenetic kind of anger now, thinking about his roommate—Kenny with other people, Kenny watching him, Kenny jerking off across the room, even though he probably hadn’t felt the need to touch his own dick in years.

Wednesday afternoon, Craig was lying on his bed with legs stretched up the wall, 700-page Statistics textbook open on his belly, studying someone’s profile pic, which was a black-and-white, close-up shot of their soda can-sized cock—or, well, someone’s cock. Craig never really believed he was looking at someone’s actual body because he never shared actual pictures of his own. He saved any decent photo without any identifying characteristics he came across for later use.

“Nice,” Kenny said as he passed by, stopping to kneel down at Craig’s shoulder and get a good look. “Whose dick is that?”

“Uh—goes by Bigg Bullitt.”

“You’re on a forum or something?”

“No, it’s Grindr!” Craig sat upright as Kenny stared at him blankly. “It’s like Tinder for gay guys.” Nothing. “Tinder is a—they’re both dating apps. Grindr shows you gay guys near you, from closest to farthest away. You can share pictures and chat and—you know, get the D.”

Kenny was already thumbing away on his phone. “I’ve only had a smartphone for a few weeks. Data plans and contracts and the thousand dollar hunks of plastic, it’s all such bullshit. But Karen’s always been kind of embarrassed not to have one and it’s nice that we can video chat and stuff. And, apparently, get the D.” Kenny held out his phone. “Take my picture?”

“You don’t have any pictures of yourself?”

“I don’t know, Stan and Kyle probably have some, but this is my phone. I use it to take pictures of other people.”

Craig waited a moment for him to crack a grin, but he was serious. Poverty had made him like an alien, unaware of such Earth customs as hookup apps and selfies. Kenny waved his phone at Craig impatiently. Craig snatched it out of his hand.

Kenny stepped back, pulled his shirt off, and stuck his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, which were tight and buttoned beneath his hipbones. Craig held up the phone framed him in the screen. The afternoon sun was streaming over his smooth, pale skin, highlighting his freckles and his softly defined abs. Kenny smiled a little and Craig clicked the shutter button.

Beautiful. Perfect. Done. “Uh—yeah. There you go.”

It was so obnoxious. How was anyone that photogenic? He handed the phone back.

“Thanks!” Kenny said, and flopped down on his bed.

Craig went back to his own bed and opened up Grindr again. In less than a minute, a new profile appeared at the top of the screen: Online, 18 years old, 6’3, 160 lbs, Looking For: Right Now, Headline: Hey Tucker and that stupid shrugging girl emoji.

Before Craig could say anything about that, Kenny said, “Hey, that hot guy in 603 is on here,” his fingers still flying over phone keyboard. “Ha, and he’s alone right now.” Kenny got up and slipped on his flip-flops, grabbed his wallet off his dresser. “I’ll see you later, dude. Dinner at like five? I know that’s early, but I’ve got work at six.”

Craig just waved him off, keeping his eyes trained on his phone. This was fucking ridiculous. Kenny had used the app for two minutes and he was going to hook up with someone. Craig had used the app for two years and he still hadn’t even met anyone in person. Granted, he’d only been able to use it properly on his rare trips out of town (within twenty miles of South Park there were nine guys regularly on Grindr: Big Gay Al, Mr. Slave, Mr. Garrison, all of whom he immediately blocked, and six people without photos, whom he refused to chat with until they did) but Craig had still only come close two times.

The first he made it all the way to exchanging phone numbers with a cute guy named Darren. He was twenty-years-old, an art history major at UC Denver, liked Sufjan Stevens and sushi, had brown hair, brown eyes, and a long, skinny cock he very vividly described engaging with Craig’s person. They arranged to meet at a coffee shop and Craig borrowed his dad’s car and drove two hours and spent six dollars on a pot of French press coffee and waited for him. Darren was twenty minutes late, which was rude, but when he hurried across the shop and said, “Craig? Wow, you’re way cuter in person,” Craig ran—literally ran, full speed—out the door and four blocks to City Park and then all the way to the zoo, which definitely beat for rudeness. Darren called him twice and messaged him with an apology before Craig finally blocked his number.

The second time he was at the Silverthorne outlet mall with Ruby and his mom, waiting for them outside while they, inexplicably, looked at baby clothes. He was keeping warm by a fire pit, browsing around Grindr to waste time, when a man sat down next to him, close enough that their shoulders brushed. Craig quickly looked him over. He had a trim beard and a Belstaff jacket, and Craig remembered seeing him carrying a toddler around Le Creuset earlier _._

“Loki?” Hot Dad said softly.

Panic seized Craig’s belly in a fist. Loki was what he went by on Grindr. He shook his head _no_ , shifted a few inches away from him.

“No, it’s okay.” Hot Dad put a hand on his knee. “I’m not alone here, either. But I have twenty minutes—”

Craig stood and walked straight into Gymboree, ears buzzing, vision blurring, arms and legs going numb. When Ruby caught sight of him, she immediately grabbed his hand and started leading him around with her, not asking any questions, not even when they were alone together later. No one in the family knew how to talk to each other, but only Ruby made her silence feel like love.

After those experiences Craig couldn't imagine just walking into some hot guy's room to have sex. It sounded fun, but—no, it was more like he wanted it to sound fun.

Craig didn’t wait for Kenny to go to dinner, but he happened to head to the dining hall by himself around five because he was getting hungry. He spotted Kyle sitting with three blonde girls Craig didn’t know and didn’t care to—they looked exactly the type to need a gay best friend as some sort of sorority initiation. He sat down across the room by himself.

He took a bite of his salad and watched Kenny and Mr. 603 walk into the dining room holding trays of food. Kenny caught Craig’s eye and waved. Ugh. He had accepted sitting with Kenny as unavoidable now, but sharing meals with his various afternoon delights was too damn much, no matter how attractive they were, looking loose and mussed and generally well fucked. That was really why he didn’t want to have lunch with Megumi the day before, knowing how impermanent she was, wondering if she knew it, too, if she cared, if she’d tell her friends about this great guy in her CS class before she realized he’d never notice her again.

Or maybe he would. Someone was sure to stick eventually and Craig wanted to share a meal with them, whoever they would be, even less.

But for today, at least, Kenny just pat Mr. 603 on the ass, and walked over to Craig by himself.

“You have a dimple, you know,” Kenny said as he sat down.

Of course Craig knew. That dimple was why Craig had worked out how to keep his face blank in any situation before he got to middle school. If one more old lady had pinched his cheek, Craig would have bitten her fingers off.

“So even when you don’t smile at me, I know you want to,” Kenny continued. “Just FYI.”

“No, see I _don’t_ want to. It’s just a reflex, like when the doctor taps on your knee and your leg—” Craig kicked Kenny in the shin.

“I’ve never had a checkup,” Kenny said as he caught Craig’s ankle in between his feet, holding him there. He dragged one bare foot several inches inside Craig’s pant leg, slowly.

“You should get one.” Cal required all students have health insurance, so he knew Kenny could afford it now. Kenny’s toes brushed across the back of Craig’s knee and he clenched his stomach to keep from visibly reacting. “Free condoms.”

“ _Thank you_ for sitting over here,” Kyle said as he slid into the booth next to Craig, like Craig would ever choose where to sit for Kyle's sake. “Those girls won’t leave me alone!”

“Tell them you’re not gay.”

“I’m not—I mean I—how did you—I never—” Kyle gestured wildly, knocking over his mostly-empty water glass.

“ _They_ think you’re gay,” Craig said. “I don’t give a shit.”

Kenny nodded. “You’re like a new handbag. Just let them know you’re out of style and they’ll lose interest.”

Kyle’s face went bright red, blotchy all the way past the V-neck of his shirt. As if through telepathy, Craig knew exactly what the reason was.

“You’re thinking about how, if you and Marsh were a supercouple, your portmanteau would be ‘Style.’ Aren’t you?”

Kyle’s jaw dropped and his face became, remarkably, even redder. Kenny literally fell on the floor laughing—though, Craig noticed, his feet didn’t lose their grip on Craig’s ankle. He covered his dimple with his hand and stabbed a tomato with his fork.


	3. Craig’s Favorite Day

Craig was confident he had built himself the perfect schedule, mostly because of Thursday. The rest of the week was packed like a sardine can, ten hours of back-to-back lecture and discussion and work study checking IDs at the door of the East Asian Library. On Thursday he had one class: Yoga, at eleven. After that he planned to do whatever the hell he wanted until the pre-weekend parties started.

His first Thursday started off perfectly. His alarm was set for nine-thirty, which felt decadent since it was three hours later than the rest of the week. Kenny was still asleep when Craig got up, bedding tangled around his legs and his back on display under a stream of yellow morning light – beautiful. Craig’s attraction to Kenny was painful most of the time, but it was pure pleasure when Kenny was asleep and Craig could stare at him like a creep for the full two minutes he spent brushing his teeth. He didn’t have to wonder what Kenny thought about Craig staring when he didn’t even know about it.

At breakfast, Craig got the first cup of a fresh pot of coffee and the cut fruit at the salad bar was all perfectly ripe. Some people from his Film class waved him over to their table, including Adam, a junior, one of the RAs in his Craig’s residence hall, who had a small sliver lip ring in the center of his bottom lip. He sucked it into his mouth whenever he looked at Craig. It made Craig want to suck the ring into _his_ mouth which he could only assume was Adam’s goal. Which was pretty awesome.

He got to Yoga with plenty of time to spare and unrolled his mat at the back center of the room. It was cool and fresh-smelling in here, and couldn’t have felt more different than the classes he took at the rec center in South Park. He had arrived.

A dirty gym bag dropped heavily beside him. Craig looked up to see Marsh grimacing down at him like Craig was an actual piece of shit that someone was making him keep in his pocket for the rest of the day. Craig looked forward and took a deep breath. Of all the places Craig thought his schedule might line up with Marsh’s, Engineering Computation was probably the last, but Yoga was a close second. “Really?” he said.

“Coach makes everyone on the hockey team take one alternative athletics class a semester.”

And he’d picked eleven o’clock yoga on Thursdays. Of course he had.

“Shit, did we need to bring our own yoga mats?”

Craig had read that requirement so many times, in so many places, he thought the overkill would drive him crazy.

“Oh, sweet—the teacher has some for sale.”

Marsh lumbered to the front of the class and their tiny instructor serenely swindled him out of fifty dollars for a basic blue mat. God, it was so offensive that Marsh had that much cash in his wallet. Marsh didn’t even try to find another place to sit, he just went back to Craig and unrolled the mat, leaving the plastic wrap and silica gel packet in a ball behind him, as if that wouldn’t get in his way the entire class. Craig heaved himself to his feet, snatched it up, and took it to the trash bin by the door.

“Thanks.” Craig nodded as he sat down again. “So have you picked a major—?” Marsh continued, but if was going to insist on small talk, Craig could do better than that.

“How’s Wendy?” he said.

“Oh—she’s good! She’s really good. You don’t talk to her?”

The rare times Craig posted something on Facebook Wendy was guaranteed to comment on it, so he could see why even her boyfriend would think they were friends.

“No,” Craig said.

“Oh! She’d like it if you did. She always said that. She thought you were scared of Bebe.”

“I am.”

Marsh laughed. “Yeah, that makes sense. You should call her. She’s only an hour away.”

“Are you trying to set me up with your girlfriend?”

“We broke up, actually,” Marsh said, “a couple weeks ago.”

“Okay.”

“And aren’t you gay?”

“Yes.”

Stan nodded.

“You never dated anyone back in South Park, so—”

“Who exactly should I have dated?”

“Maybe—” Marsh cleared his throat and scratched his head, clearly wracking his brain for a single way to end that sentence.

Gentle, instrumental Indian music started and their teacher asked them to get into savasana and close their eyes, blissfully ending that conversation forever.

After class, Craig stayed on his back and took deep breaths until he heard Marsh leave the classroom. Marsh took to yoga like a duck to water—of course—and their teacher had used him as an example of correct posture more than once. It was infuriating. But Craig refused to let this derail his favorite day.

He went to lunch and then back to his room to read two chapters of his Algebra text book, and complete the review questions due on Monday. Kenny now had class during his usual sex and shower time every week day—which was for the best, Craig reminded himself. He read a chapter for SICP, during the time he had gotten used to getting off, aware he wasn’t really processing any of it, and then he went to dinner.

He went back to his room and checked the time: seven o’clock. Time to get ready.

Craig had never been to a place that existed for gay people, existed _because_ of gay people. He had been in the Bay Area for almost a week now and he had to fix that. He did his research and figured out where he wanted to go: a club in the Castro, 21 and over, but notorious for letting in underage boys if they were cute enough. Reviews also promised good music, strong drinks, go-go dancers—and pickpockets, but Craig knew how to keep his stuff safe.

As he got dressed, Craig considered what he hoped to gain from the night. A kiss, maybe. Or just a story, a new experience, something he could never get in South Park.

Craig looked himself over in the mirror, turned to the side to see how skinny he looked in just a tight black wife beater. He ran his hand under his ribs. Very skinny. But that was a look, wasn’t it? _You’re so hot_ , someone had once told him on Grindr, _you look like I could break you in half._

Kenny came into the room and dropped an armful of apples and bananas stolen from the dining hall into the brown paper bag they were using as a kind of fruit bowl. He hopped onto his bed and looked Craig over, his eyes widening.

“Jesus Christ, did you paint those on?”

Craig was extremely pleased and had to bite his lip to keep from smiling. “Not sure I can bend over, to be honest.”

“Oh, you’re going to want to be able to do that later. You should definitely try it out, right now,” Kenny said, propping his chin on his hand to watch.

 _Don’t give him the satisfaction,_ he told himself firmly, even as glanced over his shoulder and bent over slowly, until he was folded in half and could press his hands flat on the floor. The leather whined a little bit, but it moved with him just fine.

“Look at that.” Kenny cleared his throat. “Impressively flexible.”

Craig stood up and turned to face him. His cock had chubbed up a little, which he knew was plainly obvious in these pants, but what the hell. Craig had seen Kenny much more on display than this. Kenny slid to the edge of his bed, stretching his jeans tight over his legs and making it just as clear that his cock was a little more than flaccid, too. Craig had made him hard.

“I’m gay!” Kyle announced as he slammed open the door and stomped into their room.

“Uh—”

“Yes, I know you already knew that, Kenny, but I never told you, did I? Well, here it is, the big confession: I’m gay. And I’ve never kissed a boy. How fucking sad is that?”

“Dude—” Kenny started, but Kyle interrupted him as his gaze raked over Craig.

“ _Dude_ ,” he said. “You look hot. Where did you get leather pants?”

Craig had gotten them in Florida, in fact, on vacation with Token. His parents gave them the afternoon to go shopping by themselves and Craig tried them on in Neiman Marcus despite the ridiculous price tag. Two thousand dollars was no different from twenty dollars when you had no money at all. “How do I look?” he’d asked.

“You look happy,” was Token’s response. Back in South Park, Craig found them folded at the bottom of his suitcase with a note: _Happy early birthday_. Ten months early, in fact, and fourteen months before Craig would be in a position to actually wear them.

Craig had no interest in telling that story to Kyle and Kenny, though, so he just shrugged.

“Where are you _going_?” Kyle went on.

“A gay club.”

“You’re going _out_?” Kenny said. “But it’s the first Thursday of the semester. You don’t even need to leave this building to get drunk and laid tonight. And Stan said the Athletics department—”

“I want to go,” said Kyle. “I’m gay. I should go to the club of my people. Will you take me with you?”

“Fine,” he said because Kyle was practically vibrating with _some_ thing and Craig was worried he’d explode if he told him no. Plus it might be nice to have a wingman. “Do you have a fake ID?”

“Of course he does,” Kenny said, clearly affronted Craig thought Kenny would let Kyle leave for college without one.

“Great,” Craig said, “Bring it. I’ll come with you to get dressed and then we’ll walk to the BART station.”

“Okay! God, I don’t know what to wear.”

“That’s why I’m coming with you.” Craig sat down to pull on his shoes.

“Hang on,” Kenny said, pulling off his shirt. “Let me get dressed.”

“You’re coming, too?”

“I’m playing it by ear. No reason _not_ to look fuckable.”

Kenny didn’t have to do much to achieve that, switching out his flip-flops for boots and his tank top for a white button down shirt. He grabbed his wallet and phone and was ready to go before Craig was.

Craig was impressed by how breathable his pants were as they tramped across campus to Foothill in the last of the day’s heat. He was also impressed by the amount of looks he was getting. RA Adam was riding his bike past Kyle’s building as they walked in the door and his tires squealed as he braked to stop beside them.

“Hey!” Adam sucked his lip ring into his mouth and looked Craig over.

Craig nodded at him. “Hey.”

“You going out?”

“Yup.”

“Well, I’m sorry I won’t see you around the parties tonight.” Adam kicked off the ground and starting riding away slowly. “Have fun!”

“Wouldn’t even have to leave the building,” Kenny said as they followed Kyle up a flight of stairs, “to get laid tonight.”

“I’m not even sure if he’s gay.”

“What’s wrong with you? He’s so fucking gay!”

“He wants you to suck on his lip for him,” said Kyle, unlocking his door, “if nothing else.”

“Okay,” Craig said loudly. “Which side of the room is yours?”

Both sides were neat as a pin and had _Captain America_ posters pinned above the beds, so it was even odds. Kyle pointed and Craig opened his wardrobe.

Kyle didn’t have a lot to work with. He vacillated between very skinny and a little chubby, so his clothes either looked oversized or _very_ oversized. He had one old pair of jeans that were full of holes, but fit properly and hugged his ass nicely. Craig convinced him to put them on even as Kyle complained, “These are my cleaning jeans!”

“These are artfully distressed,” Craig said, as a guy, presumably Kyle’s roommate, came through the door. “And you’d have to pay a premium to buy them new.”

The guy folded in on himself when he saw more people in the room than he was expecting and muttered, “Hey,” to his shoes.

“Hey, Oliver,” Kyle said, “These are my friends, Craig and Kenny.”

Oliver was cute underneath a thick-rimmed glasses, a bright red plaid shirt, and jeans so skinny Craig winced for his testicles. He was also about Kyle’s size.

“Hello,” Craig said, holding out his hand for Oliver to shake, and smiling at him so his dimples came out in full force. “Can we borrow some of your clothes?”

“Uh—”

“Thanks!” Kenny said, opening the wardrobe on Oliver’s side of the room. Craig squeezed Oliver’s hand before he pulled away and joined Kenny in looking through the wardrobe. Oliver had a prodigious collection of plaid shirts, a few in less offensive colors than the one he was currently wearing. Kenny pulled out a muted blue one and revealed it to have snap buttons.

“Nice. That’s hot.” Craig pulled it off the hanger and handed it to Kyle. “No undershirt, please.”

“I’ll wash it,” Kyle told Oliver as he put on a fresh layer of Old Spice. “Thanks, dude.”

“Sure, yeah,” Oliver said. “Looks better on you, anyway.”

The shirt did look good on Kyle. It was just a little tight on him, splaying open at the top, and it made his eyes look really blue.

“Hat or no hat?” A few years ago Kyle had traded in his ushanka for a variety of snapbacks, mostly worn backwards, short curly hair poking out the back and through the snap at the front.

“What happens to your hair when you take off the hat?”

“Up to you,” Kenny said at the same time. “But it’s definitely making you look like a dude bro going gay for pay right now.”

“That’s true,” said Craig, “but you look like that all the time.”

Groaning, Kyle wrenched his hat off and scratched his hands through his hair. It wasn’t as bad as Craig expected, more distinct curls than the helmet of frizz he remembered from when they were kids. Craig found a tidy line of hair products on Kyle’s dresser and took up one in each hand.

“Go get your hair wet,” Craig said. Kyle dutifully grabbed the towel off his desk chair and left the room. After a moment Craig got nervous how Kyle would dry his hair with that towel and followed him into the bathroom to do the job himself. Craig carefully squeezed the water out of Kyle’s hair until it was only damp and then spread a little of the hair cream through it.

“Okay, just let that air dry and—” Craig shrugged. His own hair was smooth and stick straight no matter what he did to it, so he had no experience with this, but it had to end up better than normal.

“Thanks, dude.” Craig dodged away from a hug and Kyle laughed as Craig shouldered him out of the bathroom.

Kenny was sitting next to Oliver on his bed when they Craig and Kyle walked back into the room. “We’re going out tonight. Into San Francisco?” He glanced at Craig, and he nodded. “If you want to come.”

Craig was surprised to hear the invitation, and a little annoyed, though he logically couldn’t begrudge someone else coming with them since the whole point was meeting a bunch of gay strangers. Not that Oliver was necessarily gay. Now that he’d come into contact with Kenny he was at least a little bisexual, anyway.

“Not really my scene,” Oliver said. Craig felt his shoulders relax. “Plus Netflix released a new season of Daredevil tonight, so my whole weekend’s pretty spoken for.”

“Um.” Kyle held up a small black jar with the word Sephora on it. “I have body glitter?”

“No,” Craig said immediately.

“Come on, Craig,” Kenny said, taking the jar and a paintbrush out of Kyle’s hands. “This is your first time at a gay club. Put on some glitter.”

Craig sighed and allowed Kenny to apply the glitter as he would. The result was—pretty fun, Craig had to admit. If he was going to a gay club in leather pants, he might as we go in leather pants and glitter.

“Oh my god,” Kyle said, pushing Craig out of the frame of the mirror. “look at my hair!” He pulled at a tidy ringlet and watched it bounce back. “I didn’t know that cream could do this!”

“Run your hands through it,” Craig said, “gently. Mess it up a little.”

Kyle did as directed and it made him look a little less cherubic, more _I woke up like this._ Good. Kyle was solid wingman material now.

“Take our picture,” Craig said, holding his phone out to Oliver.

“Want to commemorate this moment in a scrapbook or something?” Kenny slung his arm around his neck.

“I’m going to send it to Token.”

“What’s he going to do with it?” said Kyle.

“He’s going to print it out and send a copy to your mom.” Kyle went white, as Token would ever do that, and as if Sheila Broflovski would be able to see a whole night of homosexual debauchery in the photo if he did. Craig elbowed him in the ribs. “Not actually! He’s going to laugh his ass off.”

There was a knock at the open door and then Marsh barreled into the room, saying, “Kyle—!” Whatever else he was going to say was lost as he took in the three of them, mouth slowly opening wider. “What are you—why—where—?”

“We’re going out,” Kyle said, not looking at him. “Take the picture, Oliver.”

“Out? You’re—leaving campus? All of you?”

“I did text you,” Kenny said.

“You did?” Craig, Kyle, and Marsh all said, on top of each other.

“I’m not going,” Oliver said, still holding the phone out, ready to take a picture. Marsh frowned at him like he wasn’t sure who Oliver was.

“Why wouldn’t I text Stan?”

“Photo, Oliver,” said Kyle.

“I already took a lot of photos,” Oliver said, coming forward to give Craig back his phone, “actually.”

Craig looked and, sure enough, there were dozens of photos of the three of them in various states of focusing on the camera. Craig anticipated framing one so Marsh would see himself missing every time he looked at it.

“Where are you going?”

“We’re going to a gay club,” Kyle said.

“A gay—you are?”

Kyle and Marsh just stared at each other for—way too long. Craig had never seen this kind of tension between them before, didn’t know how to diffuse it because he didn’t know what it was. Jesus, why was this his concern? Craig had never considered himself a peacemaker before, but he was realizing now it was just because he knew Clyde and Token and Tweek so well. He could orchestrate the mood without even thinking about it. These assholes were allergic to peace.

“Yes,” Kyle snapped, finally.

“I want to come with you.”

“To a gay club,” Craig said.

“Yes. I’m coming.”

“You have other plans,” Kyle grit out.

“My plans were to hang out with you guys!”

“Seriously, dude,” Kenny said, putting his hand on Marsh’s shoulder, “won’t the coaches and everybody notice you’re not around tonight?”

“It’s not like we’re supposed to be shaking hands and kissing babies. Everyone will be too wasted to think about me.”

“That’s the plan,” Kyle said, striding to the door. “I’m going to the bathroom, then let’s go.”

Kenny waited until he was gone, then smacked Marsh on the chest. “What the hell, dude?”

Marsh shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about it. Am I dressed okay for a gay club?”

The extremely aggravating truth was that even in jeans and an oversized tank top Marsh would do just fine at a gay club.

“Glitter,” Craig said.

Kenny cackled and hurried over to the glitter jar.

Marsh crossed his arms over his chest. “Glitter?”

“Required for entry,” Craig said. “It’s glitter night.”

Kenny wasn’t artful with his application this time. He just painted the glitter all over Marsh’s chest and shoulders liberally and then took him into the hallway with Oliver’s blow dryer to whisk away the excess.

“You look like Oberon in a modern day _Midsummer Night’s Dream_ , dude,” Kyle said as he came up the hall from the bathroom, giving Marsh the most open, friendly look he had all night.

Marsh grinned. “Is that a good thing?”

Kyle’s expression shuttered again. “Depends on your perspective, I guess. Are you guys ready to go?”

Marsh followed Kyle out the building at a distance and Craig and Kenny followed a little farther behind him. “Sorry Oliver didn’t want to come,” Craig said even though he wasn’t and he didn’t want to talk about this at all.

“Whatever.” Kenny waved his hand. “I just wanted to throw him a bone since he obviously couldn’t find the balls to ask you out himself.”

“It’s because his jeans were squeezing them so tight.” Kenny snorted. “Wait, what?”

“Dude could not take his eyes off your ass. I knew you didn’t notice!”

He had Kenny _on his bed_ and Oliver had been looking at Craig? He looked back up the stairs. Maybe he should have encouraged him more. “Other people will want to fuck me,” he muttered, reminding himself.

“No shit. Save Oliver for when you need a sure thing.”

Kyle and Marsh were waiting for them outside the building and Craig took the lead, heading down Hearst toward Shattuck.

“Where are you going?” Marsh said.

“We’re walking to BART.”

Marsh held up his keys. “Nah, c’mon, I’ll drive us.”

“You really want to play DD, dude?” Kenny said.

“Seems like someone should keep a level head tonight.”

Kyle actually stomped his foot. “Oh, thank you, Stan—save me from all the big men who want to rough up my delicate virgin ass.”

“They do, though!”

“I know they do! That’s why I’m going to a gay club!”

“Good for you! I’m going to drive you home at the end of the night!”

Kyle stomped off the wrong direction on Hearst, presumably toward Marsh’s car, and Marsh stomped off after him.

“I’m taking BART,” Craig said.

Kyle and Marsh didn’t seem to hear him. Good riddance. Craig would take BART by himself. He turned and walked the way he’d been planning all day. Wingmen were overrated. He should have shot Kyle down from the start.

“No, please,” Kenny said, grabbing his arm. “Don’t leave me alone with them.”

“You can take BART with me.”

Kenny slid his hand down Craig’s arm and threaded their fingers together, tugged him in the direction Kyle and Marsh were going. “Please?”

Craig was reminded of Peru and knew if Kenny had only held his hand and asked him to stay with him, he would have, even then. And the world would have ended, overtaken by guinea pigs, which was maybe an indication following these guys was a bad idea.

Or maybe guinea pigs deserved the world. Craig had always suspected they’d treat it a lot better than humans did.

He let himself be dragged a step forward, and another, and then started walking at pace with Kenny, who grinned at him blindingly.

In the car Craig went through Oliver’s photos and picked a few good ones to send to Token, including one where Craig was making a shockingly unattractive face because he knew it would make Token laugh and he’d never show it to anybody else. He debated sending one to Clyde, and then forced himself to do it. The photo was his sixth text to Clyde in the past six days without getting anything in return. Craig refused to wonder if he was being annoying. He was Clyde’s best friend. It wasn’t annoying when your best friend texted you.

A reply came in from Token: _Hahahahahahahaha, best gift ever!_

Tweek had likely already seen all the photos which were automatically uploaded to a shared folder on Dropbox and downloaded to Tweek’s phone. “Proof of life,” Craig had told him when he set that up over the summer, “in real time. Every time you see a new photo you know a living Craig Tucker just took that photo.” After Orlando Craig learned that Tweek would text him ten times an hour, just to check that he could still get a response or, worse, tear his hair out to keep himself from texting when he felt like he was being a pest.

“How’s everybody?” Kenny asked him.

Another text came in from Token, and Craig held it up for Kenny to see: a photo of a meathead pouting behind a triangle of empty Solo cups, Token’s hand giving a thumbs up in the foreground. _I am the king of beer pong_ , he wrote, _now must find game that actually allows me to drink_.

“Legend.” Kenny grinned. “I miss that guy.”

 _Legend_ , Craig wrote back to Token. _Miss you_.

Token immediately sent back a smiling poop emoji and Craig put his phone away smiling.

“They’re all good. How’s Cartman? How’s Butters?”

“Cartman’s probably the one crying about all the beer someone made him drink already. Butters—” Kenny rubbed his hand through his hair, making it stand straight up for a second. “Butters hasn’t returned any of my texts in a while.”

“Clyde isn’t talking to me either.”

“Clyde probably lost his phone up his asshole, dude. He’ll figure his shit out eventually.”

Craig didn’t really understand what Kenny meant by that, but it made him feel good anyway.

Traffic was pretty easy all the way into the city, if so many cars moving so quickly around each other could really be considered easy. Marsh wasn’t prepared for the toll, of course, but they had enough singles between them to pay six dollars to cross the Bay Bridge. Craig had to admit this was cheaper than BART would have been, even if he had been going to use his Clipper card for that and those singles for the go-go dancers.

They circled looking for parking for thirty minutes, which made this officially slower than BART would have been, and the spot they found was six blocks from the club, but Craig was excited to walk back through the Castro to get there.

“Holy shit, it’s freezing!” Marsh said as they get out of the car.

It really was cold. Not Colorado cold, but he’d left all his parkas back in South Park. It had been so hot all day in Berkeley Craig hadn’t even thought to bring a sweater. Marsh opened up the hatchback and pulled out his old blue letter jacket from South Park.

“Really?” Craig said, though he was the only one who seemed to genuinely mind. Kenny was laughing and Kyle was blushing, looking at Marsh out of the corner of his eye. Kyle was turned on by Marsh in that jacket, more than he so obviously was all the time. “Really?” he said again

Kyle shrugged, snapping the cuffs of his shirt closed. “Let’s get going. Craig, do you know the way?”

In response, Craig started walking. The looks he got on campus were nothing compared to the looks he was getting here, though he hadn’t expected all the gay strangers he’d meet tonight would be so old. His only frame of reference was the movie _Milk_ which he’d watched at least dozen times when he wrote an essay on it for a Film as Literature class in high school. There were a lot more Sean Penns walking around than James Francos—and no Diego Lunas at all.

“Do I look twelve-years-old or is that just how I feel right now?” Craig muttered.

Kenny put his arm around Craig’s shoulders. “At least you’re white!”

Craig laughed. “No shit.”

“Don’t worry, Craig, they’ll let us in.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Where are you beauties going tonight?” a drag queen shouted from across the street, and she was looking straight at them. “Because that’s where I want to be!”

“That’s how,” Kenny said to him and then he shouted back, “Turn around then, honey, right this way!”

The drag queen did turn around, but just started walking backwards and catcalled at them with her friends until they turned a corner away from them.

Kyle ran forward and caught Craig’s arm, grinning. “I feel very objectified!”

They arrived at the club, which was, unexpectedly, next to a Subway and across the street from a Pottery Barn. It also had no line of people waiting to get in like the photos of the front door on Yelp, but Craig decided to take that as a win.

“ID,” the bouncer said as he looked up from the papers in front of him.

Craig handed over his whole card holder, because he trusted this bouncer and had nothing to hide, which held his Utah state ID that said he was twenty-two because he thought that had to seem less fake than twenty-one. He repeated his supposed birthday in his head.

The bouncer squinted at him and then back across Kenny, Kyle, and Stan, and sighed. He smacked a stamp on a red ink pad and gestured for Craig to come forward. “Hand out.”

Craig hesitated. “What’s the stamp mean?”

“Means people will enjoy a gaggle of twinks having a good time tonight.”

The bouncer stamped the rest of their hands without even checking their IDs. They walked inside and turned a corner to the dance floor. It was deserted. Two older guys were nursing drinks and moving their shoulders on one side of the floor. Two girls were dancing around another guy on the other side.

“The bar’s upstairs,” Craig said and led the way up the stairs.

It was just as quiet on this floor, but at least there was alcohol. Marsh pulled his sugar daddy routine again and bought them all Long Island Iced Teas. They moved to tall table near the windows. Craig took a sip of his drink and looked around the room. No one would meet his gaze, not that there was anyone really worth meeting.

Craig looked at his watch. Nine-thirty. “I guess it’s still early.”

Kenny turned and faced the rest of them. “Want to dance?”

“No, dude,” Kyle said, “I’m not going to shake my ass to Kesha on an empty dance floor.”

“Don’t hate on Kesha, Kyle. She just wants you to take it off.” Kenny took either side of Kyle’s shirt in his hands and pulled it open. He lunged at Kyle with tickling fingers and chased him around the table. Marsh looked about ready to kill someone until Kyle successfully batted Kenny’s hands away and started snapping his shirt closed again.

“Maybe we should go somewhere else for a while,” Marsh said. “Come back when it picks up here.”

Craig sighed. “I could eat.”

“I saw a diner a few blocks away.” Stan downed the rest of his drink in a few swallows and hopped off his chair.

“You could try to look a little less happy to be leaving.”

“I’m not, dude! I’m just—I’m hungry, too, and there’s no one— _you’re_ the one who said—”

“I require pancakes,” Kenny said, just a little more loudly than normal. “So this had better be a breakfast all day kind of place.”

Orphan Andy’s was indeed that kind of place. It was a skinny little railroad car of a restaurant, a bar down one side and a few worn red booths down the other, but it was packed with people and they were lucky to arrive just as another group vacated a booth in the back. Kyle sat down and pulled Craig in next to him before Marsh could take his natural seat beside him. Marsh slid into the other side and pulled out his phone like that was all he was really interested in anyway. Kyle followed suit and then they were all looking at their phones like a bunch of assholes who didn’t know how to have fun in real life. Kenny’s feet tangled with Craig’s under the table.

A server came to take their order: pancakes for Kenny, an egg white omelet for Craig, milkshakes and chili cheese fries for Kyle and Marsh to share—Marsh ordered for the pair without either of them seeming to think about it. They all went back to their phones.

“Ha, what did I tell you?”

Kenny showed him a picture of Cartman on his phone: shirtless and droopy drunk, with two equally shirtless, drunk girls tucked under each arm. The accompany text read, _Thug. Sis why u lose a drink. Game u raelly WIN_ which Craig translated into, _the thing is when you lose a drinking game you really win._ Kenny showed the picture around the table.

“Do you know what offends me?” Craig picked up a straw and started scrunching down the paper wrapper.

“There are so many options right now,” Kyle said, grimacing at the photo, “that I don’t know where to start guessing.”

“That Eric Cartman is the only person in our class who went to an Ivy League school.”

“Stanford isn’t exactly chopped liver,” said Kyle. Wendy, of course, went to Stanford and Kyle, Craig could only hope, had not gotten in.

“ _Cal_ isn’t exactly chopped liver, guys,” Kenny put in.

“Still. Harvard. Cartman. It’s patently offensive.”

“It is,” Marsh said. “He announced freshman year that he would go to Harvard, do you guys remember that? We all laughed at him, but I should have known.” Marsh sounded very bitter about this, especially for someone who had gotten into a world-class school based on his ability to throw a ball. “Cartman gets everything he wants in the end.”

“Jesus Christ,” Kyle muttered.

“Am I wrong?”

“You know I just said that to rile you up.”

“Of course I know that. This whole afternoon was just to rile me up.”

“Said what?” Kenny said.

“What happened this afternoon?” said Craig. Maybe if they got whatever the hell this was out in the open they could actually deal with it.

“Excuse me.” Kyle pushed Craig out of the booth so he could go to the bathroom.

“Dude,” Kenny started, but Marsh interrupted him by falling forward and slamming his huge forehead on the formica table.

Craig pushed the wrapper all the way off the straw, suctioned some water in the straw, and released it over the paper. The paper worm squirmed to life, and the water spread over the table, all the way to Marsh’s head. He barely noticed, just sitting back up and wiping his wet bangs off his forehead.

“I think it’s pretty impressive how many of our class escaped CSU,” Kenny said. “Twenty of us went out of state. I bet that’s a record. So Cartman adds to that, like, collective accomplishment, at least.”

“I don’t see myself as part of that collective anymore,” Craig said.

“Bullshit.” said Marsh.

“What?”

“Why do you think everyone else will be so much better than the people you already know?”

The server arrived with their food, so Craig let Marsh have the last word on that one, especially because he thought the answer was obvious. Innocent until proven guilty. The prevailing hope that South Park was the exception to the rule.

Kyle came back from the bathroom and they kept the conversation innocuous while they ate, the classes they’d had so far, weird people in their halls, Marsh’s first football game in Illinois on Saturday. He was starting and extremely nervous, shredding three napkins while he talked about it. Kyle stretched his arm across the table, not touching Marsh, but keeping his hand close, almost brushing his arm.

Craig didn’t want Marsh to get a big head about paying all the time, and this bill would be pretty modest, so Craig got his debit card ready and handed it to their server before anyone could protest.

“Thanks, Craig!” Kyle sounded delighted.

“I’ll get tip,” Kenny said.

“Oh, let Craig get the tip. You’ll get him next time,” Marsh said, smiling at him with a newfound respect, like they were cool sugar daddies together, which—nope. Fuck you, Marsh.

“You can get tip if you want to,” he told Kenny.

Kenny pulled out a ten-dollar bill, which was generous, almost thirty percent. Craig wanted to kiss him for that. The urge caught in his chest as he watched Kenny’s long fingers push the bill to the edge of the table. “You’ll get tip next time.”

“Yeah.”

Craig swallowed, glanced at Marsh. He didn’t look annoyed at all.

The line out the door Craig had been expecting was present and accounted for when they walked back to the club and Craig felt pretty cool getting in with a wave of his stamped hand. The dance floor was busy now and Kenny immediately disappeared into the mass of bodies. Craig knew he should do the same thing—that’s why he was here—but Kyle and Marsh held back and made him feel better doing the same.

“Another drink?” he said and they all went back upstairs. This time Marsh got them all glasses of beer and shots of whiskey, which were both disgusting, but Craig couldn’t fault his effort to get them drunk.

And it was fun, he had to admit, to gulp them down and slam the little glasses on the table in sync. One more round of shots, tequila this time, on Kyle’s tab, and then they went downstairs with their beers, including one for Kenny when he found them again.

He did, almost immediately, dancing them onto the dance floor like a dog herding sheep, accepting his beer as a reward, and dancing off to greener pastures.

Craig accepted he had to dance with Stan and Kyle, though he turned around, tried to pretend he was dancing with the people around them, too. Either way, though, this was no better than dancing at fucking prom in South Park. Better music, maybe, better looking people with a lot more potential for him to have an interpersonal relationship with, but in essentials? It was worse, actually, as he was dancing with these assholes instead of his actual friends. Dancing with someone you liked, Token had told him once, who you knew liked you back, was like foreplay. Every move, every look, every touch was a promise of what you’d do to each other later, and a reminder of what you’d done before. Craig had never experienced anything like that, but it explained why he thought dancing was so awkward with people he didn’t want to fuck—or wasn’t supposed to want, people he didn’t want to know what he wanted. It had probably been foolish to think he could experience that tonight. Good dancing, like sex, couldn’t happen with a stranger, not for Craig.

“Hey,” someone said, sidling up to Kyle. He was in his mid-twenties, bleached blond hair, pretty cute and pretty drunk. “You’re _really_ cute, you know? I love redheads.”

“Thanks!” Kyle said, backing into Craig as the guy swayed forward and caught himself with a hand on Kyle’s chest.

“Want to dance?”

“Uh—” Kyle looked at Marsh, wanting permission—or to be told he couldn’t, more likely—and Craig watched his gaze hardened after a few beats of silence. He turned back to his suitor. “Yes.”

And then Craig was alone with Marsh, which would have been shitty enough, but Marsh stopped dancing, left incapable of doing anything, apparently, other than track Kyle’s every move and stew about it.

“Did you just come here to stare at him all night?”

Marsh turned to face him. “That’s it,” he said, like Craig had been going on about this or something. “Outside. Now. I want to talk to you, Craig.”

Jesus. Craig really didn’t want to get punched tonight, but maybe it would be better to deal with this and move on. Maybe a fat lip would make him look badass and help him get laid. He followed Marsh out of the club and down the street a ways to a little parking area of the Chevron on the corner of the block.

“Okay, Marsh—”

“Marsh!” He was shouting. “Did you just call me Marsh?” Craig shrugged. “You think of me as _Marsh?_ We’ve known each other since we were in diapers, Craig!”

“We’re not friends.”

“Yes, we are! Dude, of course we’re fucking friends. Like, you’re a fucking asshole, but we’re still fucking _friends_. Who in that club knows you’re allergic to penicillin?”

“Uh—”

“Fucking _I_ do, Craig. Because I’ve known you for fifteen fucking years and I’m your friend.”

“Okay—”

“See, that’s the fucking _thing_ , Craig—I’m _your_ friend. Why aren’t you _my_ friend?”

“This is so fucking typical.”

“What is?”

“You need everyone to like you—”

“No, I don’t!”

“Of course you do! Even all those strangers in that club know _that_. I bet you could list everyone in the world who doesn’t like you out loud right now. Why do you give a shit if I’m not your friend?”

“You’re Kyle’s friend.”

“ _That’s_ why?”

“And Kenny’s friend.”

“You want them to choose sides, Marsh? Because they’ll pick you, no question. Just fucking ask them to choose! Problem solved.”

“I don’t want there to be sides, dude! I want you to be my friend!”

“Why! You brought Kyle and Kenny with you from home, like a couple of fucking teddy bears. Cal has twenty thousand students to pick from if you need a bigger entourage. Why me?”

“Goddamn it, dude! We’ve known each other for fifteen years! You wanted to get the hell out of South Park, okay, I get that. It’s a tiny, fucked up little town. I ran as far as I could across the country, too. But you grew up there, dude! That’s it. That’s your hometown. You can’t just cut out that part of your past. Why would you want to? That’s your whole life so far. You’ve been in Berkeley for two weeks. Brand new Craig crawling around town like a two-week-old baby, big city boy with a shiny blank slate, no past, no friends—who is that guy? That’s nobody. I know you, dude, the real you, and that guy’s an asshole, but at least he’s somebody. “

Craig was speechless. Within his first couple seconds of silence, Marsh deflated.

“I’m sorry I said all that. You not an—well, you have friends, anyway. I mean, brand new Craig has friends. Me, Kyle, and Kenny are your new friends whether you want us or not, I guess.”

“Okay, Marsh.”

“Okay what?”

“I’m your friend.”

“Just like that?”

“You’re surprised your life is easy? Really? You get everything you want. Have you ever even noticed that, or do you just take it for granted? Like what you said earlier about Cartman. Cartman doesn’t _get_ shit. He fucking takes it. He lies and manipulates and steals and grabs anything he wants with both hands and _squeezes_ until it’s his. Now you— _you_ would never. You would never have to. Anything you want, it just drops in your lap. Even Kyle! Do you know why Cartman made Kyle’s life such a living hell?”

“Because he’s a psychopath.”

“Nope. He’s a psychopath with everyone. It was only Kyle he fixated on. It’s because he could never squeeze hard enough. No matter what he did, Kyle just kept fighting back. That’s why you and Kyle are best friends. Oh, that’s pathetic, actually. I never thought about it like this. Kyle’s your best friend because of his fucking stubborn strength of character. If Cartman squeezed anyone else like he did Kyle, they’d be Cartman’s best friend. Instead Kyle just kept fighting his way back into your arms.”

It was Marsh’s turn to be speechless. He just stared at Craig with his mouth gaping open. His hands were in fists at his sides and Craig watched as he lifted them up, prepared for him to throw a punch, but instead Marsh just flexed out his fingers and folded his arms, squeezed his hands around his biceps, flexing a beautifully cut shape.

 _But then maybe_ , Craig couldn’t help but think, _it was your arms that kept Kyle fighting._

“Lookit, Marsh—”

“Call me Stan.”

“What?”

“If you’re my friend now, you’re going to fucking call me by my first name, Craig. Call me Stan.”

Craig had just called the basis of Stan’s relationship with the most important person in his life pathetic, and Stan still wanted him to be his friend? The picture appeared fully formed in his mind: Cartman was a hurricane, Kyle was a little bird, and Stan was a tree, with roots down to the damn core of the earth.

Craig rubbed his hands over his face, roughly, not caring that he was spreading glitter everywhere.

“It drives me crazy, how easily you get everything you want. My friendship was like the one thing I could keep from you from having.”

“Fifteen years, you little shit. You held out for fifteen years. That can go on your tombstone if you want.”

“And I’ll always be taller than you.”

“Taller Than Stan Marsh,” Stan said, stretching out his arm to block out the words in the air in front of them, “And Not His Friend for Fifteen Years.”

“I want Doritos.”

“Huh?”

Craig pointed at the Chevron. If his tombstone was going to be all about Stan fucking Marsh the least he could do was—“Buy me a bag of Doritos, Stan.” They walked into the convenience store. “Ooh, and a Dr. Pepper.”

It was heaven. They walked around the block and Craig ate the whole bag.

“This is amazing,” Stan told him. “I thought you were allergic to junk food.”

“No, just penicillin.” Stan rammed his shoulder into Craig’s congenially, like his life-threatening allergy was an inside joke now. “Have you ever _not_ eaten junk food? You should try it. Or—actually, maybe you shouldn’t. If you can eat a milkshake and chili cheese fries and not _hate_ yourself when you remember you’re starting for the bears’ first game of the season in forty-eight hours, hold on to that for dear life. My run is going to be hell tomorrow, after this. Eating healthy made track so much easier that I couldn’t _not_ do it.”

“Huh.” Stan took a long drink of his own root beer. “Nope, not going to try it.”

“So.” Craig popped a chip in his mouth. “Are you really going to let Kyle’s first kiss be with some random San Francisco dude who hasn’t known him for fifteen years and could never love him as well as you do?”

Very unexpectedly Stan stopped walking and pressed his face into Craig’s shoulder. If he expected Craig to hug him, he had another thing coming, but he supposed he could allow him to use Craig to smother himself.

“Kyle told you what happened?”

“No, but it’s been painfully obvious something did. All night.”

“He’s just—he’s perfect,” Stan moaned. “You know? No, that’s not—I mean, he _is_ , but our friendship is perfect. What if—relationships don’t last forever like friendships do. Most married couples hate each other.”

“Most _people_ hate each other,” Craig corrected him.

Stan opened his mouth to argue, then deflated, refocusing on the important thing. “I can’t lose Kyle, dude, I _can’t_.”

Craig groaned. This conversation was literally the last thing he wanted out of this night.

“Do you want to kiss him?” That question was too complicated for Stan, apparently, who just moaned again. “Okay, fine, you _infant_ , here’s the deal: Kyle wants you to kiss him. If you want to kiss him, kiss him. And then don’t lose him. If you don’t want to kiss him, fucking don’t. And then don’t lose him! You think relationships just fall apart by themselves? No. Relationships, friendships, family—it all falls apart because someone stops working at it.

“I’ll tell you what, though, and this is a guarantee: if you don’t kiss him, someone else is going to kiss him. And someone else is going to fuck him—” Stan leaned back and looked at him, glaring so hard he looked halfway to turning into a werewolf. “—and spend the night in his bed, and hold his hand at breakfast, and take the spot next to him on the couch, and move in with him after graduation, and adopt a dog with him, and get down on one knee and propose to him, and maybe, one day, someone else is going to know Kyle better than you do. And there you’ll be, his best friend forever, watching all that happen for the rest of your lives.”

“At least—the rest of our lives, you know? At least it’s forever.”

“Forever isn’t in question, dude, that’s what I’m trying to tell you! Let’s say you kiss Kyle, okay? And you date for a while, but it doesn’t work out. You’ll save your friendship.”

“I will?”

“Of course you fucking fill! So worst case scenario, you and Kyle break up and he still ends up kissing and fucking and adopting a dog with some other, unworthy dude. But you’ll be able to look that asshole in the eye and you’ll both know: everything he’ll ever do with Kyle, you did it first. Every inch of his body, your mouth was there first. You’ll be who every other guy is compared to.”

Craig was prepared to keep going, but he finally said the right thing to kick Stan into gear and Stan was already running back to the club. Craig ran after him, moving too fast for the bouncer to stop him with his still-half-full bottle of Dr. Pepper.

Stan went directly for Kyle, like he already knew where he’d be. Kyle was standing with Kenny and a couple other guys, one of whom had his arm half way around Kyle’s shoulder, fingering the hair on the back of his neck. Stan smacked his hand away and cupped his hands around Kyle’s jaw and murmured to him, too quiet for Craig to hear. Stan’s mouth clearly formed the word, “What,” and then Kyle cut him off, slipping his arms around Stan’s neck and stretching on his tiptoes to kiss him.

Fucking finally.

Stan walked them backwards until he could press Kyle against the wall.

“You look like a proud papa.” Craig jumped and turned to Kenny, who had made his way to Craig’s side.

“I do fucking not.” Kenny just kept grinning at them and then reached up and poked Craig in his damn traitorous dimple. He smacked Kenny’s arms away. “Fuck you.”

“When I saw you guys leave I figured Stan would come back with a black eye.”

“The night’s still young.”

“Please. I think you ensured Stan’s going to be busy the rest of the night.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Really.”

“I just reminded Stan—”

“Oh, it’s Stan now, huh?”

Craig rolled his eyes. “I reminded him if he doesn’t pee on the tree, none of the other dogs will know he was there.”

“Stan’s planning for other dogs?”

“Stan’s an idiot.” Kenny laughed and took his Dr. Pepper from him, took a long drink. “You can have the rest.”

Craig watched his throat work as he downed the rest of the bottle and noticed Kenny was still dancing. His hips and shoulders couldn’t seem to help moving to the beat. Craig wanted to move with him, wanted to match his every move, wanted to fit his body against Kenny’s. He’d never wanted something so much in his life.

“Do you want—” He was distracted by a man coming up behind them, closer than was strictly polite, even in a club like this. He was older, maybe thirty, muscular, hairy, a little damp and fragrant with sweat. He put an arm around Kenny’s shoulder and said, “Are you ready?”

“Just about,” Kenny replied.

“Did you find someone else to join us?” Muscles put his hand on Craig’s back. “I approve. He’s gorgeous!”

Join? Kenny and Muscles _and_ Craig?

“No,” Craig said, stepping away from the man’s hand. “No. No.”

Kenny laughed. “It’s still just the four of us,” he told the guy.

“ _Four?_ ” Craig said before he could stop himself.

“Goodnight, Craig.” Kenny leaned over and kissed Craig on the temple, the barest brush of his lips and then he was walking away with Muscles. “I’ll be home before breakfast tomorrow.”

Craig watched them disappear into the crowd.

His chest started to hurt and he realized he wasn’t breathing. He took a deep breath and looked back to where Stan and Kyle were making out. Except they weren’t there anymore. He fumbled his phone out of his pocket and found Kyle in his contacts.

 _Don’t leave without me,_ he typed out. _If you already left, you’re coming back for me._

He could still take BART or, perish the thought: continue enjoying his night out at a gay club and find someone else to leave with, but it was the principle of it. He’d suffered this much time with them. He’d get a free ride home out of the deal.

“Craig!” Kyle shouted, jumping on him and wrapping both arms and legs around him. Stan caught Craig around the waist to keep him from falling backwards with Kyle’s weight. As Kyle let go of him, Craig noticed his hair was an absolute disaster now. Someone had been rubbing their hands all over it. “We’d never leave without you!”

“We do, uh—” Stan stuck both his hands in his front pockets and plainly adjusted his hard dick in his pants. “—kind of want to go now, though.”

“Kenny’s spending the night elsewhere. You guys can use his bed tonight if you want to. I’ll sleep in one of your rooms.”

“Dude, seriously?”

Stan was clearly too blinded by the potential of spending the night alone with Kyle that he wasn’t considering how Kenny might feel about his friends fucking all over his sheets. Or how much Kenny had been fucking on those sheets this past week.

Craig smiled. “I insist.”

During the drive home, Kyle asked him which room he wanted to sleep in. “Yours,” he said, no question. His sheets had probably been washed since they arrived at Cal, or at least had never been used immediately after Stan finished a workout.

Kyle grinned and said, ”Yeah, and you already know Oliver,” in an obnoxious singsong voice.

“You like Oliver?” Stan reached back to try to ruffle his hair but Craig dodged his hand.

“Oliver likes Craig,” Kyle corrected him. “And he seems like a really nice guy, dude, you should give him a chance.” Craig shrugged. “Should I text him to let him know you’re coming? He’s probably asleep.”

“It’s not even midnight.”

“He gets up when it’s still dark every morning, runs 10K around campus, and meditates at sunrise.”

Stan grimaced. “He sounds perfect for you, Craig.”

Craig actually hated getting up before the sun, no matter how many times he was forced to do it for track practice, but he did appreciate the dedication to wellness, wished he didn’t hate waking up so much. Maybe Oliver would better him. If they dated. Craig rubbed his face with his hands.

Stan dropped him off in front of their dorm and Craig traded keys with Kyle. The ground floor was hopping with loud music and people talking, but it got quieter has he went upstairs and down the hall to Kyle and Oliver’s room. The lights were off when he let himself inside, but a streetlamp was bright below the window.

Oliver sat up on his forearm to look at him. “You’re not Kyle.”

“No,” Craig said. “We switched rooms for the night.”

“Okay.” Oliver laid back down.

“Ugh, I need to shower first. Where’s Kyle’s bathroom stuff?”

“In between the bureau and the armoire. Towels in the bottom drawer.”

Craig smiled at the vocabulary as he bent down to feel for a shower caddy in the darkness. “Where are you from?”

“Skowhegan, Maine,” Oliver said, “but my dad lives in LA so I have residency here.”

Craig hummed. “I’ll be back. I’ll try to be quiet.”

The Foothill bathrooms were eerily similar to the bathrooms in Sproul, but it made washing all the glitter and sweat off his body an easy job. He changed into a pair of Kyle’s pajamas in the shower stall, tidily folded his dirty clothes, and went back to the room feeling a lot better.

It was just past midnight as he got into bed. Craig stared at the ceiling, not very tired. Why had he decided to be a good samaritan again? He should have left Stan and Kyle to their own devices and enjoyed having his room to himself all night.

A gentle sound of rubbing on fabric was coming from Oliver’s side of the room. Craig looked and realized Oliver wasn’t even trying to be subtle: he was lying on his back, his cock making an impressive tent of his blanket, and his hand moving up and down it quickly. Craig grimaced at first, but already he was getting hard, disgust melting into arousal.

He sighed and turned onto his back to mirror Oliver’s position. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve it, but apparently this was how his sex life was going to be: weird, disconnected encounters where no one touched him or possibly even cared he was there. He bent his knees and pushed Kyle’s boxers down until he could pull his cock and balls over the waistband. His knees kept his wet cockhead from rubbing on Kyle’s sheets so he left them up even if it would be less obvious what he was doing. Craig looked over at Oliver and Oliver was looking straight back. Yeah, he knew what Craig was doing.

Kyle had a bottle of Burt’s Bees body lotion on his bedside table, which was both gross and convenient in this moment. He pumped a little into his hand and spread it on his cock, enjoying the sudden burst of cold, and the silkiness as it warmed up. Would this stuff make his pubes softer? That question was probably a good indication he wasn’t that into this, but whatever. He grabbed a couple tissues off of Kyle’s side table, too, and got them ready to catch his come.

The slick-smack of skin on skin and heaving breathing filled the quiet room. Craig rubbed his thumb over his slit and let out a little moan. Oliver sat up and—wait, was Oliver coming over here?

No. God, _no_. Maybe Craig had been sending that invitation, but it hadn’t been his intention at all. He didn’t want Oliver, not really, not now, not yet. His first time was not going to be with Kyle’s roommate in the middle of the night while Kenny was with three other guys a bridge away from here. Craig’s cock was softening at the very thought.

He turned onto his stomach and closed his eyes and ignored Oliver completely, his heart beating so hard he was sure Oliver could hear it as he stood at the side of the bed, watching him, waiting.

“Craig,” Oliver said softly.

Craig didn’t move, kept his breathing even, squeezed the fitted sheet in his fists. Oliver reached out to him—Craig could feel the heat of his hand above his shoulder, but Oliver didn’t touch him, thank god. After a moment Oliver marched out of the room, the door latching loudly behind him.

The moment the potential had passed, and he was alone, Craig felt like an idiot. Would it have been so bad, having another hand jerk him off?

Yes, actually, he decided, especially because his cock didn’t even twitch at the thought of it. He would have lost his erection in poor Oliver’s hand and this would have ended a lot more awkwardly.

What would he have done if Kenny had decided to toss his hookup to the side and cross the room to him, crawled on to Craig’s bed and straddled him and—and he was hard again. Craig turned on his side and covered his eyes with his arm, jerked himself off as fast as he could into the tissues thinking about—nothing, God, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes sharing a skinny bed against a cold winter in 1940s Brooklyn, jerking each other off and too embarrassed to meet each other’s eyes, desperately in love and too ashamed to talk about it.

Craig threw the tissues away in Kyle’s little plastic bin and tried to calm his breathing before Oliver came back. He was sleepy now, at least.

Oliver closed the door and slipped into his own bed quietly.

After a moment Craig whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Oliver said and he sounded like he meant it. “No, I mean—I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Craig hoped he sounded as sincere.

At five thirty Craig woke up to the sound of Oliver getting ready for his run.

Craig rolled onto his back. He hadn’t slept very well in the unfamiliar bed. He had a Stats section at nine. He could get up now, get some work done. He could go running with Oliver, even, meditate at sunrise and share something meaningful with a cute guy who liked him. But all he really wanted was to sleep in his own bed. He wanted to look across the room and see the shape of Kenny under the sheets Craig had picked for him. Kenny wouldn’t be there, had spent the night with three other guys who weren’t Craig, but he could at least have his bed.

 _Coming home_ , Craig sent to Kyle, _so no morning sex for you._

Craig went back to Sproul in the last of the night’s darkness, aware that this was the lamest walk of shame to ever be taken. He had nothing to be ashamed of.

The building was quieter than he’d ever heard it as he took the elevator to the sixth floor and walked down the hall. Craig opened his door, catching it before the hinges hit the squeaky spot. Stan was on his back on Kenny’s bed, and Kyle was asleep on top of him, his head tucked under Stan’s chin. At the sound of the door closing Stan shifted and tightened his arms around Kyle.

Kenny was asleep on Craig’s bed. All the pillows were on ground, Kenny’s head cradled on his arm. At the sight of him Craig knew exactly what he wanted and he was too tired to do anything but take it. He dropped his bag on the ground, kicked off his pants, lifted the covers, and crawled into the narrow bed next to Kenny.

Kenny turned over and smiled at him sleepily. “Hey,” he whispered. “Did you have a good time last night?”

“I’m exhausted,” Craig said, knowing that would be misinterpreted. “Go back to sleep.”

Kenny hummed. “Kay.”

He nuzzled forward on the mattress till their heads were close, and then closer, kissing Craig gently on the mouth, as easy as anything. Craig swallowed down a gasp. Was Kenny even awake right now? Did he know who he was kissing? Kenny started to pull back, but Craig ducked forward to kiss him again, deeper than before, and open-mouthed. Craig kissed him one more time and then turned over onto his other side, not brave enough to face Kenny’s reaction.

After a moment Kenny pressed up behind him, fitting his knees against Craig’s knees and putting an arm over Craig’s chest.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies to anyone who actually went to Cal because this must be jampacked with bad information. I took a few classes there, thanks to a cross-registration program with my college, I live in Oakland, and I did my share of research, but some details are just flat out lies to fit my needs. [This is a house of lies!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCrg78KEWzI) Less lies than when I was setting this in Boston, though!


End file.
